


Predestined

by resurrectionmercy



Category: overwatch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cat Cafés, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 06:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectionmercy/pseuds/resurrectionmercy
Summary: It’s a hideout for Angela; a place away from the war, the suffering, and the ghosts of her past. Or it is, until one of those ghosts walks into her domain, reminding her of many of the things she used to be, and perhaps most of all, how lonely she’s been since leaving.





	Predestined

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt.

 

* * *

 

The crowded street leaves a small opening for the man standing behind the window. At first, Angela doesn’t pay much attention to him; he looks like a war veteran, hood pulled up over his head and the exposed wrist visible from the wrinkled sleeve of his dark shirt mechanical, implying a non-civilian grade prosthetic. She sees them every now and then, comes with the field - she used to see them a lot more, but after the incident, after moving here, she’s just tried to not think about it. The war, the suffering, the prosthetics, none of it has place in her mind today.

She turns the page of her book like her gaze from the man, sips her coffee, and plants the mug back on the desk. Her feet are propped up on the stool next to her and on her lap, a slim grey cat with dark stripes naps peacefully. Before carrying on reading, she’s distracted by the milk splatter pattern over the animal’s small muzzle, and the shivers of its whiskers, the attentive twitches of its ears perceiving the sounds of its dreams. If she didn’t respect the cat’s sleep, she’d touch those small, silky paws gripping her jeans now, but... she’d rather let the creature rest.

Interrupting her, the door bell chimes as a customer walks in; she lifts her gaze, as does the cat on her lap, although the cat is less attentive than she is. And that’s when the odd feeling of familiarity strikes her. No - she’s seen this man before.

He walks in the café, a hesitant gait to his steps, like he’s not used to moving in the daylight.

”Can I help you?” she asks him, but her voice is weak and cracks and he doesn’t even seem to hear her. Instead, he stops, looks around and then kneels slowly onto the floor, reaching out his hand to let a cat make acquaintances with his scent.

She sees his hand, and she recognises it immediately. Every piece, every joint, every pad and every curved plate - it’s her work. Her design.

The cat slips down from her lap as she stands up, stunned and barely realising she’s moving. She skips forwards and moves faster than intended, until she’s standing next to him, and he’s standing up very slowly in comparison, his red-tinted eyes examining her with the shock of recognition widening them. She hears him breathe out, but she’s holding her own gasp.

”Angela?” he calls her name the very same instant she breathes out his; Genji.

A stunned silence later, her gasp and his defeated laughter mix the same as their words did.

”Out of all people...” he mutters, turning his gaze away.

”Where have you been all these years?” she asks him, and he’s motionless for some time.

Then, as if deciding there’s no way to avoid this, he returns to her.  
”Looking for myself,” he tells her quietly, the same accent tinting his familiar voice, now less rough and lacking the edge it once did, ”How about you, Doctor Ziegler? I heard you are no longer in the field.”

She shakes her head.

”Painful subject, huh,” he fills in the following silence, something of a smile playing in his tone.

”I suppose it would be the same for you,” she says, and he nods.

”Perhaps we should sit down, then,” he suggests, ”and speak of other things. Perhaps we should meet as strangers today, forget about the things that we do not wish to speak of.”

Angela looks around, her eyes staying upon a white round table for two in front of an old-fashioned window, the frames of which are painted with white, although the surface is now peeling in that charming fashion that the whole interior design supports. The pillows on the windowsill are taken by a white cat that seems to melt into its surroundings; she’s a mixed breed female named Valkyrie, and she’d raised her herself. Weeks of hand-rearing after the cat’s mother had rejected her had made Angela quite fond of her, and out of all these cats, she’s the one whose papers she signed for herself - she’s the one she brings to her upstairs apartment with her every evening after closing, and who sleeps on the pillow next to hers in the creaky, heavy-framed bed that came with the place.

”Would you like -” she starts, but then she looks at him and her smile climbs up to a crooked, apologetic tone.

”Were you about to ask me what I would like to drink, Angela?” Genji asks her, a hint of tease in his voice.

”Perhaps.”

”In that case, I would very much like a glass of water, or if you have herbal tea, then only that, the flavour does not matter; no honey, sugar, milk, or anything else that would cause my system to suffer shock.”

She sighs.  
”Genji, I -”

”Do not apologise, Angela. It has been years since you last saw me. If I read your approach right when you came to me, it seems that you did not, at first, even recognise me. I am a different man now.”

He reaches up to his hood, pulling it down from over his messy dark hair; his mask is still covered under the high collar of his shirt like a bandana, but she can see the framework disappearing underneath his skin around his temples anyway. Genji tilts his head and examines her for a moment.

”You have not aged much,” she tells him, averting her gaze as she speaks the words.

”Neither have you,” he notes, ”At first, it made me quite uncomfortable. I felt like a cyborg vampire, as if by denying me my aging you’d denied me the shreds of humanity that remained within me. Then I understood this is nothing but a side-effect of everything you did to keep me alive. Side-effect of, if I am correct, the treatments I received to help my body recover and regenerate fast enough to survive?”

She nods slowly.  
”You said you would like herbal tea. We do serve that. If you’d take a seat and give me a moment,” she speaks quietly, and he nods gracefully, stepping aside without hesitation.

He seats himself by Valkyrie and the window; Angela thinks he had to notice her gaze stopping there. As she turns the opposite way, she sees him offer his hand to Valkyrie as well, and the cat - well accustomed to disabled visitors - gives him a lazy sniff before flopping back onto her pillow. As Angela sets to prepare the tea, she watches his fingers run over the cat’s soft, thick, long fur, and her mind, it seems, has gone back ten years or so in a matter of an instant. She’s reading his movements, the shifts in his body language, to determine the functionality and sensitivity of his prosthetics; she can perceive pleasure in him each stroke, the pleasant communication of a comfortable texture against the sensor pads in his hands, the radiation of calming warmth from the body of a domesticated animal, and from that she can assess that his systems are still functional and provide him the necessary stimulation and support for the production of situationally appropriate brain chemistry responses. She’d love to shut all this off and just look at him like she’d look at any figure from her past, but Genji’s not just anyone. He’s never been.

She places two mugs on the table, one steaming infusion of orange blossoms and ginger on his side, and her own cooled down coffee on the other. She doesn’t mind the state of her drink. She knows she’ll barely taste it now as she sits down, her gaze meeting the intensity and sharpness of his.

”What drove you here? You are not a waitress, Angela.”

”No, I am not. I am a barista, and a co-owner of this establishment.”

”Who’s the other half?”

”Amari’s daughter, Fareeha. She’s still working in the military, but this was her brainchild, and it is a home away from home for her.”

Genji nods.  
”So you still keep in contact with our past. I thought otherwise. This looked like a hideout. That is what dragged me in; I thought, of all places, my past would not haunt me here.”

He looks amused, and Angela can’t help but laugh at his words.

”I suppose we are two ghosts running for the same hills, then,” she says, ”But no, I do not keep contact - I avoid it as much as possible. Fareeha is a dear friend, however. I could not... say no when she called me. We talk on the phone often, these long conversations - often late in the night - that are mostly fantasy about what could be, the lives we would have lived in another world, but somehow this fantasy stuck and, driven by some madness or another, we... made it reality here in New York.”

He nods again. This time, he stays silent for some time after, looking out of the window; the scenery has turned rainy now, with streams of water running steadily down the stainless glass separating them from the early fall’s chill.

”I am not saying this to blame you, Angela, but... don’t you ever think about all those people who need you out there?” he asks.

She feels chills rushing through her spine. Tears sting at her eyes immediately, and she chokes on the sip she takes from her mug.

”Every day. Every hour, Genji.”

”How did you walk away, then?” he asks her.

”How did you? One day, after what happened with the headquarters, I just walked away. I do charity work even today. I haven’t left it all behind, I cannot escape my calling, but - but I cannot bear the weight of it on my own, and I lost faith that night in - I don’t want to say the world, Genji, but the world. There is so much suffering, and I’ve seen so much of it. And one day, I just couldn’t anymore.”

”So you... started hoarding cats.”

”I started hoarding cats.”

Once more, he nods. It seems to make sense to him. He’s not even laughing. Instead, his fingers bend carefully around the edge of his collar, tug it down, and he spends some time undoing the plate covering the lower part of his face. Beneath it, his face - his cheeks, his jaw, every bone in his face - is mostly reconstructed. Even his tongue, which he runs carefully over his sensor-ridden lip crafts, is artificial. She doesn’t look at him; as a doctor, she knows better than to stare, and she’s seen all of this before. Others, however, have not; there aren’t many, if any, people as profoundly damaged and as heavily modified as Genji Shimada. She can hear the few other customers turning to stare at him now, prompted by one another’s growing curiosity. To her surprise, however, he doesn’t seem to mind it so much now. He brings his drink to his lips, breathes it in through his nostrils into the filters that Angela crafted within to replace his olfactory functions, and lets out a soft breath that ripples over the surface of his drink.

”Blossoms and ginger,” he identifies the infusion, his eyes flickering over to Angela, who nods; her eyes turn to his, carefully at first, but when he shows no sign of discomfort, she lets her head turn back towards him.

”When you came here,” she starts then, ”You looked lost, but like you were lost with a purpose. You came here for something but you didn’t seem confident about your reasons.”

”Ah,” he lets out, ”Yes. You are as keen as ever. I did come here for a purpose. See - I have decided to settle down, Angela. Yesterday, I laid down my bag in an apartment on the seventh floor of an old apartment complex with cracked walls and splintered ceiling looking out at a busy modern street below, illuminated by these yellow, old-fashioned lamps and the glow of neon from the outside world, and for the first time in years, I unpacked everything. And as I was unpacking, I realised that I was quite miserably lonely, you see. A plan formed in my mind, that I told myself I would think over for a while before putting it in motion, yet... here I am today, with everything ready back at the place I suppose I should now be calling ’home’.”

She listens to him, her lips bending over the edge of her mug again, leaving no lipstick stains over the china - she’s not putting on a face for anyone anymore. It doesn’t seem anyone notices, or cares; they’re here for the cats, and she’s just part of the decor, a lonely, fair but disheveled-looking woman with young skin and an old heart.

”Would you have a suggestion for me, Angela, if I came here like any other customer and told you that I am quite lonely and on the lookout for a loving companion I could bring home with me, to cherish and care for in return for his or her warmth and presence and, I would hope, love?”

For some time, her eyes are glassy as she stares at the table between them. Then, she looks up at Valkyrie; it’s by instinct, not by reason, brought upon the combination of factors she’s looking for. Yes - Valkyrie is, by far, the best adapted cat in the establishment when it comes to disabled customers. She doesn’t mind the difference between the touch of skin and the touch of a prosthetic sensory pad as long as the caress it brings is gentle and loving; she’s calm in demeanor, but quirky and fun-loving when prompted, friendly and easily adjusting, unfazed by change of scenery, and perfectly content living in and out of the company of other felines.

But she’s hers. There is no separation between them. Slowly, she turns her gaze back to him and blinks, finding him calmly waiting for her to recover.

”Would you like me to rephrase any of that, Angela? You seem distracted,” he tells her, a vague tease in his voice.

She chuckles, shaking her head. She sighs as she lays her arm on the table, her fingers playing around with the stack of napkins at the side of the table.

”I know the perfect cat for you,” she tells him, a weight in her chest, ”the problem is, she’s the one that I own.”

”Oh? I can’t take your cat, Angela. Choose another, then.”

”No. It’s not about that. She’s the perfect match for you, in every way, as if - it was meant to be.”  
She smiles quietly. Perhaps she knew this day would come.  
”I raised her from a young kitten, she is... family to me, but my heart knew she is what you need the moment you spoke those words. It happens often, you know; someone walks in here, and I can tell from that moment, this cat was meant to be with them. This person was always meant to come here and leave with this animal, like they were bound together before they ever met. I just - perhaps did not expect that animal to be the one I picked off the streets. I always assumed she would stay with me.”

”Angela... She is your pet, not mine.”

She shakes her head.  
”You should at least consider it.”

”I cannot consider it.”

”Perhaps we can reach an arrangement,” she says then, lifting her gaze to him, this time quite confident - it brings out something in her, a memory, or a ghost, of the doctor she used to be.

”What would you propose?” he asks.

”That you meet this cat, firstly,” she tells him, ”I do not give away animals based on some vague instinct and a sense of destiny. You have to get to know her and confirm that this is the cat you want to take home with you, and you have to love her and promise that you will take the best care of her that you are able to provide, and that that care will meet her needs. You have to be a match not only in my mind but in the real world. And then, if all goes as I think it will go, and it usually does... you keep coming back here for some time, to her, instead of taking her with you right away. You said settling down made you feel lonely - as a professional, I can tell you that simply adopting a cat will not make you feel less detached, less out of place, even if a cat will provide you the love and warmth that you, as a human being, need to feel content. Coming here, to this café, on the other hand... will make you connect with other human beings. It will give you a routine, which is necessary in forming healthy habits in a new environment. It’ll give each of your days a purpose until you find something else; a job, perhaps, or a relationship, or a network of friends that will keep you otherwise occupied. Maybe all of these things will be coming your way sooner than you think. And when you’ve built up a proper relationship with your new cat, you can then take her home with you.”

”And where do you fit in this picture, Angela?” he asks her, his voice softer than before; he sips his infusion once more as he waits for her answer.

”Me?” she repeats, confused and thrown off her prescription.

”Yes, you. The way I am hearing it - you are the owner of this cat that I am being set to adopt now. You are the co-owner of this café, and a barista, which I suppose means that should I keep returning here, I will be seeing much of you as well.”

”Would you rather go somewhere else?” she asks, ”Somewhere that doesn’t remind you of the things you left behind.”

”No,” Genji says calmly, ”I am not saying I do not wish to come back here because of you, no. I am merely curious - are you lonely as well, Angela? Would you - perhaps like to start over with me, as a man who walked into your establishment looking for a warm drink and some company, and maybe in time forge a new friendship with me? You suggested that I would greatly benefit from such, and now I have met you, have I not? Maybe this is a good place to start from.”

She feels a distinct hotness spread over her cheekbones. Caught me, she thinks quietly - and she didn’t even realise that this was at the back of her mind this whole time. A defeated sigh leaves her, and her eyes bounce towards the rainy window as she sips her cold coffee before laying it down and looking firmly at him.

”I am not opposed to this arrangement. So be it, then, Genji; tomorrow, I would like to see you here again for another drink and a playdate with our felines.”

He smiles, nodding.  
”Of course. I will be here, then.”

”Good. Now - would you like to meet this cat I keep speaking of?”

”Yes,” he tells her, ”I cannot wait.”

Her eyes turn towards the long white cat stretched on the windowsill, and Genji’s hand still stuck in her warm fur.

”Well, there she is. Say hello to Valkyrie,” she huffs, her eyes beaming teasingly as she turns for him once more.

He lifts his brows, chuckles, and turns towards the cat in his chair.  
  
”Hello, Valkyrie,” he says, his fingers sliding up to her ears, stroking gently over them as the cat opens her bright blue eyes, ”My name is Genji, and I hear that you’ve been waiting for me.”


End file.
